Photos and stories from our great holiday in Langkawi, Malaysia, our favourite holiday.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

A $light Problem of the Monetary type.

When we checked into the Berjaya Resort in Langkawi, we made a discovery, not of the joyous type, more of the, oh, oh now-we-are-in-trouble type.When you book into these 5 star resorts they always request your credit card to make an impression, just to cover themselves in case of guests booking up masses of drinks and food to their rooms, then having no money. We don’t charge to our rooms, but many others do, in fact almost everybody at the resort was doing this.Anyway when they asked for my credit card, that is when I discovered that my credit card had not been lucky enough to have a nice tropical holiday and was still at home in New Zealand in my best going-to-town handbag! I never bring my ordinary handbag when I travel instead I use a banana shaped soft vinyl shoulder bag with short straps so it hangs comfortably just under my arm, it has a zip that goes from strap to strap sealing it completely, making it extremely difficult to pick pocket. Langkawi is a safe place but many places we go to are not. With this purse I feel quite safe going anywhere knowing my money and cameras etc are quite safe.So, no credit card, Erle quickly stepped in and offered a quantity of money to cover this problem, the manager readily accepted NZ$200.00 and we were all sweet again. Except for the fact that we didn’t have the card to backup any of our spending, it’s just nice to have the assurance behind you. We actually hadn’t brought that much actual cash with us, we had been led to believe that there would be no other food available in the area except for the 6 restaurants attached to the resort, so had expected to be spending heaps on meals, this brought a slight change of plans. We would have to be cautious in our spending watch our pennies.We don’t go overseas as tourists anyway, we go as travellers immersing ourselves as much as possible into the culture as we can.So after we had enjoyed the previously mentioned Grand Welcome by the ladies with fruit and goodies, we walked down to the security post at the gates and I asked them just where they ate, as obviously they wouldn’t eat in the resort. The security men said they just walk down the road half a mile to the food court at the Oriental Village on the right., but, they said its all Malaysian food – hot and spicy! No problem. I told them, we didn’t come to Malaysia to eat Western food we can do that at home. We set off immediately in the very hot sun and were fortunate

This is the Oriental Village.

to be picked up by the resort shuttle and taken to the Oriental Village. There we found the Food Court with about 7 different small shops selling all kinds of interesting foods – most of which we didn’t recognise, but the people were happy to explain what the dish was and to make them not too spicy. We dined like kings for RM$11 which is about NZ$5.50, and vowed to continue doing this most evenings.It would remain to be seen whether we would end up having a major problem, by having no credit card